In 1999, Sega released the first Shenmue adventure game on the Dreamcast. Seven years in production, the game was, at that time, the most expensive title ever released.

A sequel to the free-roaming game was released in 2001 with a sequel planned. A third entry in the Shenmue series has not been released, and an online game called Shenmue Online was in the works. However, this game is believed to be canceled.

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There will be a new Shenmue game. It will be released in Japan — this year, even!

However, it will be released as a social networking game. A new entry called "Shenmue Town" will be released in Japan this winter for the Yahoo! Japan version of Mobage-town, which is a hugely popular mobile-based social network.

According to the game's press release, this will be the "third" Shenmue game — that doesn't necessarily mean it's Shenmue III, however. So perhaps don't go looking to this social networking version of Shenmue to clear up Shenmue II's cliffhanger ending.

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Besides Shenmue, a version of Atlus's Persona series called Persona 3 Social will be released on Yahoo! Mobage-town.